Artfully Yours - Making Dreams Come True

Anyone can have fun making art and craft projects, potentially even making it their career. From quilting to whittling, there is something for everyone. Knowledge is essential to the process. Keep reading to find out what you need to know.

Work on arts and crafts with your children. This can be a great way for you to teach them what you know, but it is also a great way for you to learn new things together. By spending time together on arts and crafts, you are going to be building memories and a stronger relationship.

Search for fabric and other arts and crafts supplies online. A lot of the time, you can compare prices and find coupons on the Internet much more easily than going from craft store to craft store. When you shop online, you can get exactly what you want from the comfort of your own home.

If you have difficulty locating supplies at decent prices, check out thrift stores. Goodwill and similar consignment stores have a lot of goodies to entice the savvy artist. These supplies don’t last long, so keep checking.

If you are into arts and crafts projects, make sure that you set aside some materials for yourself before allowing your children to have free rein. Parents who love crafts are very likely to micromanage what their children do. This likelihood is reduced if you know you will be doing a project of your own later.

Don’t throw away any wire hangers! That wire can come in mighty handy with lots of different arts and crafts projects. Keep those hangers to the side. You can stretch them in all sorts of angles to create all sorts of fun shapes. Or you can use it as a way to bind pieces of a project together.

Does some of your arts and crafts projects involve painting? Do you sometimes have difficulty painting straight lines? Masking tape can help with this problem. Stick the tape on the craft that you are painting and paint a little over the edge of the tape. When the paint has thoroughly dried, pull it off. Now, you will have a perfectly straight line!

When you are finished painting for the day, make sure to clean your brushes thoroughly. Paint that is left in a brush dries and hardens the bristles. The next time you want to use them, the stiffer brush will not make as subtle strokes as it did, and it will be hard to keep that pure color.

When you are building a Pinewood derby car, make sure that you drill holes carefully in the bottom of the car, near the front, to load your weights into the body. Having the front part much heavier pulls it down the ramp faster, making your car more likely to finish in first place.

Have some place to put the pets when arts and crafts are in progress. Cats are very curious and get into everything. Dogs are renown for scarfing down nearly anything dropped from a table. Make sure that your arts and crafts afternoon doesn’t wind up with a trip to the vet, or worse.

Do not toss product packaging after you’ve opened something. The packaging materials can be recycled and reused for different craft projects. Store these items in a bin for any upcoming projects you may have.

Now you are ready to create anything your mind can dream up, all thanks to the tips above. Apply these tips to have fun with arts and crafts. After awhile the projects you create will get much better, impressing even yourself at your creativity.